2008: The Year That Was

A few reflections on this past year.

Strangest thing that wasn't so strange:
Spending only eight weeks in class for the whole year. I've been doing school for eight or nine months each year since I was five. Along comes an engineering co-op job in the spring, followed by a session of summer school and another co-op session in the fall. It didn't end up feeling nearly as strange as I expected.

Longest time spent studying for a single test:
Three... four hours? I don't know.

Number of nightmares about final exams:
None.

Most aggravating part of school:
Getting a C+ because I chose not to memorize old tests (whose questions served as the question bank for the "new" tests). According to the professor, memorizing tests was cheating, yet he made no efforts to stop it (even by, say, coming up with test questions he hadn't used before).

Miles on my car:
5200

One thing I won't miss:
Endless media coverage of the presidential race.

One thing I will miss:
New Attitude in Louisville, Kentucky.

Speaking of Louisville:
I don't think I've ever been farther west than that. I need to take a road trip, or something.

Best memories from an event:
Hard to say. The trip to Pittsburgh to hear Mark Altrogge speak was a lot of fun.

Best memories from life in general:
Random, hilarious moments with my family that, frankly, can't be described--not that anyone outside the family would necessarily understand anyway. Wait, I said that last year, and the year before. Oh well. No reason it had to change.

Book that impacted me the most (after the Bible):
The Discipline of Grace, by Jerry Bridges. Although I read a lot of other good books this year, this was an easy choice.

Song that impacted me the most:
All I Have Is Christ. (A download is available for free.) In recent months, I've been learning a lot more about how true -- and glorious -- it is that Christ is all. This life-long lesson is related to...

Doctrine that impacted me the most:
"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5) My natural thinking is that I can be self-reliant in many ways. But apart from Christ I can do nothing. It's not fun to see new illustrations of this truth, but it is good.

A Good Piece of 2008 Trivia:
2008 was the longest year since 1992. (Any guesses as to why?)

Best monetary decision:
Setting up a budget in January. Not only did it help me save more money, but it also did away with the "should I be spending this money?" questions when eating out or buying books.

Most shocking budgetary result:
Coming in way under budget for gasoline.

A whole year later...
Life really doesn't feel that much different than it did at the end of 2007. Is that good or bad? Probably some of both.

Share a few reflections of your own in the comments section.